Dáil debates
Wednesday, 3 December 2025
Planning and Development Act 2024 (Modifications) Regulations 2025: Motion
1:05 pm
Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)
I said to the Minister earlier that I would pray if somebody would start to listen and I am going to give him a small bit of prayers. This is from the point of view of the part in the Bill that brings in developer-led infrastructure. Why am I so glad that is going to be introduced and that Government is looking at and encouraging this? I will tell you why. When you bring a business model into a development, you can then use the costing of that delivery of infrastructure and put it against the likes of Uisce Éireann and what it is delivering. It creates a competition network where you can actually see how much it is costing, how much it can be delivered for, and look at the likes of Uisce Éireann and ask why it is costing more for it to develop something that is the same. That is what I welcome.
The only way we are going to see ourselves out of a housing crisis is a business model. Accountability for building on budget and on time is the only way. I am in business all my life. I have said it here that I do not do any Government contracts and never have, but I am building all my life and I am accountable for the work we do, for the people who work with me and for their families, and to make sure at the end of the year that the business lasts into the following year. This model is the only way we are going to get out of a housing crisis. It is developer-led infrastructure where the business model is used against our departmental models to show what we can deliver, even on systems where we can come up with a system for even hospital building.
Somebody rang me today to say they are getting a house built by Murphy's New Homes. They can go to a catalogue, pick out the house and they can deliver it cheaper because it is out of a catalogue. It is the same; you pick this house, this house, this house. That is why it is delivery on budget and on time.
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